Natural Cures Guide

For some women, the symptoms are all too familiar: burning and stinging during urination and the persistent urge to go, go, go, even when they have just gone. Their urine may be cloudy, smelly and sometimes tinged with blood. The usual problem: a urinary tract infection, caused by bacteria and settled in for the duration.

Urinary tract infections are second only to colds when it comes to infections in women, whose anatomy sets the stage for trouble. In men, urinary tract infections are much less common but potentially more serious, because they’re often tied to prostate problems.

Doctors recommend a number of moves to minimize the risk of infection for women who develop recurrent infections. Urinate before and soon after sex, for example. And think twice about using a diaphragm. Women who rely on this birth control method are two or three times more prone to recurrent infections than nonusers, since the diaphragm causes irritation of the vaginal surface, which allows bacteria to adhere. Spermicidal jellies can also contribute to bladder infections, upsetting the normal balance of ” friendly ” bacteria in the vagina and the surrounding area. Also, jellies may irritate the vagina, set up inflammation and let bacteria adhere to the vagina, from where they migrate to the bladder. Most doctors treat urinary tract infections with antibiotics, which usually work just fine.

In addition to these measures, some doctors suggest the following nutritional therapy.

Acidify with Vitamin C

Some doctors believe that pushing the urine’s pH ( acid-alkaline ) balance a bit towards the acid side helps treat a bladder infection by slowing the growth of bacteria in the bladder. Some doctors recommend vitamin C supplements for this. It is unclear how this has an effect, and there are no studies to prove it, but it seem to help some women.

Doctors who recommend vitamin C to prevent or treat bladder infections usually suggest a daily dose of 1,000 to 5000 milligrams. You would have to eat about 14 oranges a day to get that much. In fact, oranges and orange juice aren’t your best source of vitamin C in this case, and not only because you would OD on OJ.

Because of the way your body metabolizes it, orange juice does not acidify your urine as efficiently as supplements. You can check the acidity of your urine with a chemically treated nitrazine strips, a sort of litmus paper that’s available in many pharmacies. Follow the directions on the package.

Food Factors

Drinking more water is about the only dietary move doctors agree on when it comes to urinary tract infections. Some recommend more acid foods, since acidic urine can inhabit bacterial growth. Others think it is impractical, because the acid balance of urine can change from hour to hour. ” Women may need to experiment with foods to see what sort of diet is least bladder-irritating for them. Alkaline foods can help in treating symptoms such as urgency and frequency but can’t specific bacterial infections.

Here is what’s recommended.

Drink Up. Perhaps the single most important dietary measures you can take to prevent urinary tract infections is to drink lots of water - about six to eight eight ounce glasses a day. Keeping yourself well-hydrated helps flush bacteria out bacteria out of your bladder.

Guzzle Cranberry Juice. Women have long touted cranberry juice for its ability to prevent bladder infections. Now there is scientific proof for this old wives’ tale. But remember, if you have an infection, this won’t help much in its treatment.

In a study by Harvard Medical School researchers, 153 older women ( average age 78 ) were divided into two groups. One group was given 10 ounces a day of either ordinary cranberry juice sweetened with aspartame; the other got a drink prepared to look and taste exactly like cranberry juice. Urine samples were collected every month for six months. Those who drank the real juice tested positive for infection only 42% as often as those who drank the fake juice.

In this study, however, urine did not become more acidic, which lends credence to another theory that some thing in cranberry juice prevents bacteria from sticking to the interior tissues of the bladder, making them easy to flush out and unable to multiply.

Blueberry juice has a similar effect, Israeli researchers have found. But other types of juices that were tested–grapefruit, orange, guava, mango, and pineapple–do not have an anti-adhesive component.

Stay Neutral. Some doctors believe that acid foods slow down resolution of the bladder infection because the acid may irritate an already inflames bladder. So they recommend neutralizing your urine with a low-acid diet, including antacids or a teaspoon of baking soda mixed in a glass of water two times a day.

Ferret Out Food Foes. If you think something in your diet exacerbates flare-ups, try eliminating these possible culprits: caffeine-containing foods, guava juice, citrus fruit, apples, cantaloupe, grapes, peaches, pineapple, plums, strawberries, tomatoes, spicy foods, alcoholic beverages, carbonated beverages, and vinegars. It also might help to eliminate foods that contain the amino acids tyrosine, tyramine, tryptophan and aspartate. They include aspartame, avocados, bananas, beers, cheeses, chicken livers, chocolate, corned beef, lima beans, mayonnaise, nuts, onions, prunes, raisins, rye bread, saccharin, sour cream, soy sauce, and yogurt.